gooselake&twingranitelakes
Goose Lake & Twin Granite Lakes
August 21, 2009 Trip to Goose Lake & hike up to Twin Granite Lakes
Looking down into Goose Creek from the road into Goose Lake
Looking down toward the town of New Meadows in the distance.
Looking back down the road toward McCall and Brundage Mountain Ski Resort area
Looking almost straight down over the edge (I'm not getting any closer than this!).
This is the meadow at cow camp, the start of a mostly vertical trail to Twin Granite Lakes. Dead trees
are result of a fire in 1994.
Looking across the meadow to the actual cow camp buildings. Ranchers lease grazing rights on US Forest
Service land, and must keep cowboys (and/or cowgirls) nearby to keep the cattle in designated areas to
avoid overgrazing and possible wet weather trampling damage to creeks and roads. A small staff of cowhands
will live in this camp for 3 to 4 months of each summer.
Leaving cow camp meadow and heading up the mountain. All those dead trees are from a fire in 1994.
Evergreen trees in this picture have all grown from seedlings planted since 1994.
Approximately 1/4 the way up the trail to Twin Granite Lakes, and looking south across the canyon we
just climbed out of.
Looking north and across the canyon we just climbed out of. Duck Lake is just over the rocky point in
the center of the picture. It is a strenuous 2 mile hike to get to Duck Lake. We are not going to do that
one today.
Up there is the ridge we have to climb over in order to reach Twin Granite Lakes. Again...dead trees are
left over from that 1994 fire. The flora and fauna is recovering nicely.
About 3/4 up the trail to Twin Granite Lakes, and looking back across the canyon toward the south east.
3/4 way up the trail (I'm getting tired!) looking north east toward Hazard Lakes.
Interesting contrast of dead trees and living ones. The 1994 fire was a very hot mostly crown fire so
quite a number of then smaller trees seem to have survived unscathed. Crown fires occur where timber
is unusually dense and there is limited undergrowth. Environmental constraints in this area prior to the
1994 fire prevented logging off of mature trees and resulted in conditions that were ideal for unmanageable
crown fires.
At last! arrival at Twin Granite Lakes. The upper lake is natural, while the lower one is a man-built reservoir.
They cut a channel between the two when the dam was built in the 1940's era. This allows spring snow melt
to make these two lakes into one larger one. Then irrigation water draw off in mid summer lowers lake levels
to the original size of the upper lake and about 30 feet depth in the lower one. Fish and wildlife habitat rules
will not let downstream irrigation interests lower water below these levels.
It appears that trees near the waterline were spared from the 1994 fire, as were those in the background
which are nearly above the altitude where evergreen trees can survive.
Upper (original) lake showing the channel that was cut between the two bodies of water in order to
lower the levels for irrigation use. If you look closely in the mid-right area you can see two trees that
are isolated from the rest and have a small snow pile between and below them. This is all that remains
of what was earlier a glacier-like snow pack from last winter's snowfall. Another week and this will
undoubtedly be gone.
At the edge of the upper lake. In this photo you can more easily see the small snow pile between those
two trees in the center of the picture.
Looking south across the upper lake at a canyon that usually fills to 18 to 20 feet of snow and ice during
a normal winter. August is just too late in the summer for any of this snow pack to be left. Notice from
the lake surface that wind has picked up a bit. It's cold up here, even on a late summer afternoon.
This is looking west across the upper lake toward where a small creek runs in.
It is quite small now that the snow has pretty much melted for this year.
Just an interesting looking but dead tree near the lake shore.
I'm walking around the upper lake toward where a small snowmelt creek enters the lake. That big rock mountain in the background is all granite with the top being at about 8000 feet (2438 meters) elevation.
Gotta climb over these rocks to get to the upper end of the lake.
Just an interesting dead tree shot near the upper end of the original lake.
That small creek running into the lake is at the base of that large rock. Those are tree stumps, not a Sasquatch family standing just in front of the rock.
See, there really is a small creek at the base of that big rock.
Tree stump at the upper end of the upper Twin Granite Lake.
Some unnamed creek north of Little Hazard Lake. Lots of brook trout in this one.
Down timber from that 1994 fire makes for difficult walking along trout streams in this area, but it also helps hide and support a lot of fish.